Lamia
In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia ( ; Greek: Λάμια) was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet (λαιμός; laimos), referring to her habit of devouring children.Aristophanes, The Wasps, 1177. Mythology In the myth, Lamia is a mistress of the god Zeus, causing Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, to kill all of Lamia's children and transform her into a monster that hunts and devours the children of others. Another version has Hera merely stealing away all of Lamia's children and it being Lamia herself, losing her mind from grief and despair, who starts stealing and devouring others' children out of envy, the repeated monstrosity of which transforms her into a monster on its own. Some accounts say she has a serpent's tail below the waist.Compare Typhon (Typhoeus), Echidna, the Gigantes and other archaic chthonic bogeys. This popular description of her is largely due to ''Lamia'', a poem by John Keats composed in 1819.Keats, "Lamia" Antoninus Liberalis uses Lamia as an alternate name for the serpentine drakaina Sybaris; however, Diodorus Siculus describes her as having nothing more than a distorted face.Diodorus Siculus, Library of History xx. 41. Later traditions referred to many lamiae; these were folkloric monsters similar to vampires and succubi that seduced young men and then fed on their blood.Information on Lamia from the Online Encyclopedia In later stories, Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes so that she would always obsess over the image of her dead children. Some accounts (see Horace, below) say Hera forced Lamia to devour her own children. Myths variously describe Lamia's monstrous (occasionally serpentine) appearance as a result of either Hera's wrath, the pain of grief, the madness that drove her to murder, or—in some rare versions—a natural result of being Hecate's daughter.Odyssey 12.124 and scholia, noted by Karl Kerenyi, Gods of the Greeks 1951:38 note 71. Zeus then gave her the ability to remove her eyes. The purpose of this ability is unclear in Diodorus, but other versions state Lamia's ability to remove her eyes came with the gift of prophecy. Zeus did this to appease Lamia in her grief over the loss of her children and to let her rest since she could not close her eyes.Bell, Women of Classical Mythology, drawing upon Diodorus Siculus 22.41; Suidas 'Lamia'; Plutarch 'On Being a Busy-Body' 2; Scholiast on Aristophanes' Peace 757; Eustathius on Odyssey 1714) Horace, in Ars Poetica (l.340), imagines the impossibility of retrieving the living children she has eaten: Alexander Pope translates the line: Stesichorus identifies Lamia as a daughter of Poseidon and as the mother of Scylla by Phorcys.Stesichorus Frag 220, Eustathius on Homer's Odyssey 1714. This might be a conflation of Lamia with the sea goddess Ceto, traditionally Phorcys's wife and mother of Scylla. Further passing references to Lamia were made by Strabo (i.II.8) and Aristotle (''Ethics vii.5). Other sources cite Triton as having fathered Scylla by Lamia. Antoninus Liberalis identifies the dragon Sybaris with Lamia, another conflation. Interpretations (1905); note the snakeskin wrapped around her arm and waist.]] Mothers throughout Europe used to threaten their children with the story of Lamia.Tertullian, Against Valentinius (ch.iii) Leinweber states, "She became a kind of fairy-tale figure, used by mothers and nannies to induce good behavior among children."Leinweber 1994:77. Many lurid details were conjured up by later writers, assembled in the Suda, expanded upon in Renaissance poetry and collected in Bulfinch and in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Lamia was envious of other mothers and ate their children. She was usually female, but Aristophanes suggests a hermaphroditic phallus.Aristophanes, Peace, l..758 Leinweber notes, "By the time of Apuleius, not only were Lamia characteristics liberally mixed into popular notions of sorcery, but at some level the very names were interchangeable."Leinweber 1994:78 Nicolas K. Kiessling compared the lamia with the medieval succubus and Grendel's mother in Beowulf.See Nicolas K. Kiessling, "Grendel: A New Aspect" Modern Philology 65.3 (February 1968):191–201. Apuleius, in The Golden Ass, describes the witch Meroe and her sister as lamiae:The Elizabethan translator William Adlington rendered lamiae as "hags", obscuring the reference for generations of readers. (Apuleius, Metamorphoses University Press 1989 (Metamorphoses is more familiar to English-language readers as The Golden Ass.). "The three major enchantresses of the novel—Meroe, Panthia and Pamphylia—also reveal many vampiric qualities generally associated with Lamiae," David Walter Leinweber has noticed.Leinweber, "Witchcraft and Lamiae in 'The Golden Ass'" Folklore 105 (1994:77–82). (1909); note the snakeskin on her lap.]] One interpretation posits the Lamia may have been a seductress, as in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana, where the philosopher Apollonius reveals to the young bridegroom, Menippus, his hastily-married wife is really a lamia, planning to devour him.Leinweber 1994:77f Some harlots were named "Lamia".Kerényi 1951 p 40. The connection between Demetrius Poliorcetes and the courtesan Lamia was notorious.See Plutarch, Life of Demetrius xxv.9See Aelian, Varia Historia XII.xvii.1See Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae III.lix.29. In the painting by Herbert James Draper (1909, illustration above), the Lamia who moodily watches the serpent on her forearm appears to represent a hetaera. Although the lower body of Draper's Lamia is human, he alludes to her serpentine history by draping a shed snake skin about her waist. In Renaissance emblems, Lamia has the body of a serpent and the breasts and head of a woman, like the image of hypocrisy. Christian writers warned against the seductive potential of lamiae. In his 9th-century treatise on divorce, Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, listed lamiae among the supernatural dangers that threatened marriages, and identified them with geniciales feminae,Hincmar, De divortio Lotharii ("On Lothar's divorce"), XV Interrogatio, MGH Concilia 4 Supplementum, 205, as cited by Bernadotte Filotas, Pagan Survivals, Superstitions and Popular Cultures in Early Medieval Pastoral Literature (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005, p. 305. female reproductive spirits.In his 1628 Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, Du Cange made note of the geniciales feminae, and associated them with words pertaining to generation and genitalia; entry online. John Keats described the Lamia in Lamia and Other Poems, presenting a description of the various colors of Lamia that was based on Burton's in The Anatomy of Melancholy.Keats made a note to this effect at the end of the first page in the fair copy he made: see William E. Harrold, "Keats's 'Lamia' and Peacock's 'Rhododaphne'" The Modern Language Review 61.4 (October 1966:579–584) p 579 and note with bibliography on this point. The Keats story follows the general plotline of Philostratus, with Apollonius revealing Lamia's true nature before her wedding. 's The History of Four-Footed Beasts]] Modern folk traditions In the modern Greek folk tradition, the Lamia has survived and retained many of her traditional attributes.Lamia receives a section in Georgios Megas and Helen Colaclides, Folktales of Greece (Folktales of the World) (University of Chicago Prtes) 1970. John Cuthbert Lawson remarks "....the chief characteristics of the Lamiae, apart from their thirst for blood, are their uncleanliness, their gluttony, and their stupidity".Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals (Cambridge University Press) 1910:175ff. The contemporary Greek proverb, "της Λάμιας τα σαρώματα" ("the Lamia's sweeping"), epitomises slovenliness ; and the common expression, "τό παιδί τό 'πνιξε η Λάμια" ("the child has been strangled by the Lamia"), explains the sudden death of young children. In popular culture The English poet John Keats published his narrative poem "Lamia" in 1820.http://www.bartleby.com/126/36.html Keats's poem Lamia The poem has influenced later works of Western literature. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic poem "Aurora Leigh" contains numerous references to Lamia, including Book One in which at times a portrait of her dead mother appears as a Lamia, and Book Six in which she repeatedly refers to Lady Waldemar as Lamia. Booker Prize winner A.S. Byatt's 1998 collection of short fiction, Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice contains a short story entitled "A Lamia in the Cévennes", which references Keats poem. The character Brawne Lamia appears in Dan Simmons' novels Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. The works of John Keats feature heavily in the novels. In Neil Gaiman's TV series and novel Neverwhere, a character named Lamia is a "Velvet," a type of warmth-drinking vampire. The name is also given to the witch queen in the film adaptation of Gaiman's novel Stardust (a character who goes unnamed in the book). Keats's poem also influenced British progressive-rock band Genesis and their track "The Lamia" from the 1974 double concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The lyrics to the track, written by then lead vocalist Peter Gabriel, describe three snakelike creatures with female faces, roughly corresponding to Diodorus's description. In the song "Prodigal Son" from the 1981 Iron Maiden album [[Killers (Iron Maiden album)| Killers]], Lamia is called to for help in the form of a prayer.http://www.metrolyrics.com/prodigal-son-lyrics-iron-maiden.html The lamia has appeared as a monster in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, introduced to D&D in the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977), with an illustration by David C. Sutherland III.Gygax, Gary. Monster Manual (TSR, 1977) Lamia have also appeared in other roleplaying games inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, such as Pathfinder. Lamia has also appeared in Rick Riordan's book The Demigod Diaries (as part of The Heroes of Olympus). Lamia was disguised as an event choreographer for Dr. Claymore, a famous author. When Claymore discovers Alabaster Torrington, a son of Hecate that Lamia targeted, she destroys Claymore's laptop that contained his writing works. She also destroys his favorite coffeeshop and the owner, Burly Black. Claymore escapes and warns Alabaster about Lamia's coming. But Lamia tracks them down and eventually holds Claymore at her mercy, right after the duo find a way to banish Lamia and bind her to the earth. Claymore dies and arrives at the Temple of Hecate, where Hecate herself explains everything. Claymore then returns to Alabaster as a Mistform and with Lamia being banished, walks away. Lamia plays an important role in Gene Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist (1986) - later retitled Latro in the Mist (2003). The character also makes an appearance in the BBC show [[Merlin (TV series) | Merlin]], where she is the primary antagonist of season 4, episode 8, "Lamia". Here she is portrayed as a beautiful girl with serpent's blood who causes discord and violence among the men around her. Lamias have also appeared in Japanese manga, most notably in Rosario + Vampire (where the mathematics teacher Ririko Kagome is a lamia) and in Monster Musume (where the main character Miia is a lamia). Neither character is portrayed as evil or dangerous. Lamias appear in other Japanese media, such as the erotic VN/JRPG Monster Girl Quest (where the player encounters several lamias, most often Alipheese Fateburn XIV, the female lead.) Lamia appears in the popular comic series Fables as the wife of Beast (from Beauty in the Beast). Lamia believes she is the character known as Beauty, however she is actually Lamia taking Beauty's form. Lamia had taken Beauty's form before the events of "Beauty and the Beast" and had forgotten her true nature by that point. Since then Beauty/Lamia periodically remembers her identity and reverts to her nature as a killer until Beast can subdue her. In the Night World book series by L. J. Smith Lamia is used as a term for the vampires of the world who were born vampires. Lamia has also appeared in Joseph Delaney's the Last Apprentice book series as the protagonist's mother. The world is also populated with Lamia's children, whom were created after the curse was upon her and so appear in the form of Lamia witches. In Whitley Strieber's novel The Hunger, the mother of the main female vampire (Miriam) is described as Lamia, who gave birth to Miriam in the pre-Christian era.The Hunger, Whitley Strieber, Simon and Schuster, 1981, ISBN 9780743436441 (2001 edition) Paul Torday's novel The Girl on the Landing features a schizophrenic character who begins seeing a woman called "Lamia", who induces him to become a killer. In 2012, a benevolent Lamia appears as a key character in the Jacqueline Carey novel Dark Currents. Lania appears in the movie Drag Me to Hell as a powerful demon that is summoned after Ganush curses Christine. Its task is to torment Christine for three days before literally dragging her into Hell to burn for eternity. In the movie Innocence, the antagonists are incarnations of Lamia who must kill and drink the blood of virgins to retain their immortal existence. In the Magic: the Gathering TCG, Lamia appears as a creature card. Lamia appears in an episode the BBC show Merlin, in which the Lamia seduces the Knights of the Round Table, turning them against one another while on a quest. Only Merlin and King Arthur's wife Guinevere avoid Lamia's trap. See also * Abyzou * Gorgon * La Llorona * Lamia (Basque mythology) * Lilith * Melusine * Nāga * Aswang References Sources * *Karl Kerényi, 1951. The Gods of the Greeks pp 38–40. Edition currently in print is Thames & Hudson reissue, February 1980, ISBN 0-500-27048-1. External links * Theoi Project - Lamia * Theoi Project - Keto Category:Queens in Greek mythology Category:Libya in Greek mythology Category:Demons Category:Greek legendary creatures Category:Offspring of Poseidon Category:Legendary serpents Category:Metamorphoses in Greek mythology Category:Vampires Category:Female legendary creatures